AT WORK, REST AND PLAY AT WORK...

How did you get into this industry?

After leaving full time education, I spent 3 years at a performing arts college before realising that career wasn’t for me! So I took an admin role at an automatic door company and I’ve stayed in the door and window sector ever since.

Please give a brief resume of your career to date.

I left my position at the automatic door company to raise my children, but when the time was right I re-entered the industry by taking up a position at an IGU manufacturer, where, after progressing through various roles, I became an estimator. After several years there, building up my knowledge of glass and windowmaking, I saw an opportunity with involve? marketing etc.) is transferable to any industry?

As office manager, it’s my responsibility to ensure the main office functions run smoothly day-to-day. My role is extremely varied – I manage a team of 12 people spanning accounts, estimating, order processing, marketing, aftersales, reception and customer service. This means I have a responsibility for almost every area of the business apart from production!

It’s a fast paced environment as the team I manage works to return quotes for our integral blinds to customers within the hour, and it is constantly racing to ensure orders of around 4,000 blinds every week meet the cut off with our suppliers. But every day is different, and often my role involves liaising with clients, and even visiting customers on-site if needed to help resolve any issues.

This series in Glass News highlights the hopes and aspirations of women in the windows, doors, glass, roofs and hardware industry and will hopefully inspire more to make this their career.

Yes, definitely. Although I wear many different hats in my role, my speciality is to get the best that I can out of diverse team and ensure they deliver a superb service to our customers. That’s something I would like to think would be of value to many other businesses.

Have you a career path mapped out or is it more about opportunism?

I never had window industry a career in mind, but I am a believer that you have to trust the path you’re on. I think you succeed through hard work and applying yourself to the best of your ability. Remember that every day is a school day, keep an open mind and make sure you seize the opportunities when they arise!

AT REST...

Away from work, what is your focus?

My family is everything to me, which certainly includes my dog Nelly, as well as my two sons aged 11 and 12 and husband! My sons keep me busy with their schooling and out-of-school activities, and I’m close to others in my family, particularly my mother.

We’ve also been busy renovating a house over the past few years, which as anyone who has done it will know, is a full time job in itself. Despite the scale of the task, it has been enjoyable to do and a really rewarding when you see the transformation.

AT PLAY...

Do you achieve the work/life balance you would like to?

Does anyone really achieve this? When you’re passionate about your work and focused on doing the best job you can I don’t think you really ever switch off. But that doesn’t mean I am always thinking about work – that’s not healthy for anyone! I think it is important to value your downtime, which is easy for me to do with such a great family around me.

If money and leisure time were no object, what would you really like to do for yourself or your family?

We went on a skiing holiday for the first time as a family earlier this year and everyone loved it! So we would certainly go on a big ski trip, but I think on the whole we would all love to spend time seeing as many places as we could across the world. Aside from seeing the world, I would certainly spend more time working with the charities that I’ve got to know through the support that Morley Glass has provided in recent years, especially CATCH and Yorkshire Children’s Charity, who do amazing work helping young people.

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